


The House on Fleet Street

by WatsonsStressBall



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Cannibalism, Dark!Jack, M/M, dark!Bitty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 04:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7419067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatsonsStressBall/pseuds/WatsonsStressBall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a big Victorian house on a quiet street in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Jack and Bitty live and work, their day-to-day lives more entwined than ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The House on Fleet Street

**Author's Note:**

> Ngozi, I owe you a huge apology. I'm totally going to hell for this.

In a quiet neighborhood on Fleet Street in Pawtucket, just outside of Providence, Rhode Island, there is an old Victorian house, painted a cheerful pink.

Its second story sports a barber’s pole, and in the window are stenciled the words, “Zimmerman’s Barber Shop.” The beige awning overhead flutters gently in the early autumn breeze.

Directly downstairs is another large window, and a sign reads, “Bitty’s Pies.” The rich aroma of succulent meat and pastry wafts down the street.

The lawn is cropped short, and a pair of garden gnomes peek from behind a rhododendron. Two Adirondack chairs sit companionably side by side on the wide porch.

A brunet young man, cell phone in hand, climbs the stairs to the second floor and enters the barber shop, where he is greeted by Jack Zimmerman himself. “...Brah,” the young man is saying emphatically into his phone, “seriously? Jessica Hammersmith? The girl is a petri dish, you can’t be serious, brah. You need a hookup but you can do better, I’m telling you, there’s this chick over at Alpha Phi…”

Jack frowns, clears his throat, points to the “No cell phones, please,” sign on the wall. His customer gets the hint. “Sorry bro, I gotta peace out for a bit, text me later okay?” He hangs up and stuffs the phone in a pocket of his cargo shorts, then turns to Jack. “Hey brah, can you fix me up? I heard you’re the cleanest shave in town, and the sorority down the street is having a huge party tonight.” The kid smirks at Jack from beneath a mane of scraggly brown hair. “Man’s gotta get laid somehow, you know how it is.”

Jack smiles then reassuringly. “I understand, believe me. I’ll take good care of you.” He hands his customer a styling cloth and gestures to a chair. His tools are polished to an impeccable shine and lay ready on a tray on the counter. As the young man ties the cloth around his neck, Jack reaches for and absently fingers a gleaming straight razor.

*****

Eric “Bitty” Bittle is in his element. He’s been working since before well before dawn, and even at 2pm, he seems indefatigable. A radio in the window blares Top 40 hits as he sashays past the counter, rows of beautifully golden pies on display under glass. He pulls out four small pies and lovingly boxes them up, then reckons up the total on a sleek white iPad, turning it to the customer, a middle-aged woman with a couple of pre-teens in tow. “There you are, ma’am,” he says briskly, popping the boxes into an oversized paper bag. “That’ll be $35.65, and we do take Apple Pay as of this week!” 

“Oh, how interesting!” remarks the woman. “So I can pay with my phone? Only place I saw that was using that so far has been Whole Foods!” She fishes her phone out of her voluminous handbag and thumbs it on.

“Yes, ma’am, and I can vouch that it really works!” Bitty replies with a broad smile. “Never been easier as a small business owner to get these point-of-sale systems up and running! Wonderful!” He finishes ringing her up, hands her the bag, and waves goodbye to her and her kids, humming along with the radio. The kids follow her out of the shop, never once looking up from their phones, and a bell tinkles as the door swings shut behind them.

Bitty turns to the oven. Twenty minutes left on this batch. He washes his hands in the sink and dries them, pausing as on the counter, his phone buzzes with a notification -- there’s another delivery ready in the back, and he needs to deal with it. He takes up a mallet, a couple of kitchen towels, and a large, sharp butcher’s knife, and goes through the swinging door that leads to the processing area. It smells strangely sweet back there, but up by the counter, at least, the odor is overpowered by the mouth-watering scent from the oven.

*****

It’s seven p.m., and Jack and Bitty are finishing up after another long day. The few pies that haven’t sold that day are safely stowed in the walk-in cooler, the counter has been wiped down, Jack’s swept his floor for the last time and carefully washed all of his tools, and the two of them together have washed down the bakery’s processing floor and the equipment housed there. Now they are piling used clothing into a box that used to hold pie boxes. “Did you get a receipt from the charity shop for the last lot we sent them?” Bitty asks Jack.

“Yep,” replies Jack. He smooths out a pair of cargo shorts and puts them on top of the pile, then seals the box with packing tape. “I put it in the filing cabinet with the others.”

Bitty wraps an arm around Jack’s shoulders and kisses him on top of his head. “Thanks, love,” he says. “Well, I’m beat. What do you want for dinner? I have some eggplant in, could make us an eggplant parm if you like.”

“That sounds great,” says Jack. “I like that one. Get that off Pinterest?”

“Sure did,” says Bitty. “There’s a lot of good vegetarian dishes on there, really. And after working with meat all day, somehow I just don’t have the appetite for it anymore.”

Jack nods. “Yeah, Bits, I feel the same way, you know?” He gives Bitty a hug, and they walk hand in hand to the kitchen to start dinner.


End file.
